Dryout Avoidance Control for Multi-Evaporator Vapor Compression Cycles With Transient Heat Flux

Author(s):  
Daniel T. Pollock ◽  
Zehao Yang ◽  
John T. Wen

Multiple-evaporator vapor compression cycles may be used for distributed cooling of high heat-flux systems, such as arrays of high-power electronics. Under transient heating conditions, these systems must be carefully controlled to avoid critical heat flux (CHF) due to evaporator dryout. An active control strategy is presented that regulates two-phase flow quality in multiple evaporators in order to avoid critical quality under transient heating conditions. A two-loop control system is used, in which an outer loop uses model-based feedforward combined with evaporator wall temperature feedback to determine the necessary coolant flow rate to avoid CHF, while an inner loop uses system actuators (variable speed compressor, electronic expansion valves) to track to the desired flow rate. An advantage of this approach is that the inner-loop control handles the system complexity arising from pressure coupling and actuator nonlinearity. Additionally, the outer-loop quality control may be applied to other two-phase cooling schemes, for instance pumped systems, by providing coolant flow rate setpoints. Simulations and corresponding experimental controller validation were conducted using a three-evaporator vapor compression testbed with transient imposed heat-flux.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Harrison ◽  
Joshua Gess

Abstract Using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), the amount of fluid required to sustain nucleate boiling was quantified to a microstructured copper circular disk. Having prepared the disk with preferential nucleation sites, an analytical model of the net coolant flow rate requirements to a single site has been produced and validated against experimental data. The model assumes that there are three primary phenomena contributing to the coolant flow rate requirements at the boiling surface; radial growth of vapor throughout incipience to departure, bubble rise, and natural convection around the periphery. The total mass flowrate is the sum of these contributing portions. The model accurately predicts the quenching fluid flow rate at low and high heat fluxes with 4% and 30% error of the measured value respectively. For the microstructured surface examined in this study, coolant flow rate requirements ranged from 0.1 to 0.16 kg/sec for a range of heat fluxes from 5.5 to 11.0 W/cm2. Under subcooled conditions, the coolant flow rate requirements plummeted to a nearly negligible value due to domination of transient conduction as the primary heat transfer mechanism at the liquid/vapor/surface interface. PIV and the validated analytical model could be used as a test standard where the amount of coolant the surface needs in relation to its heat transfer coefficient or thermal resistance is a benchmark for the efficacy of a standard surface or boiling enhancement coating/surface structure.


Author(s):  
Tao Huang ◽  
Wenxi Tian ◽  
Yapei Zhang ◽  
Suizheng Qiu ◽  
Guanghui Su

The quenching characteristics of particulate debris bed during bottom and top flood is analyzed in this paper. The top flood model is formulated by dividing the quenching process into downward frontal period and upward frontal period, which are controlled by the counter-current flow limitation (CCFL) condition and effects of the incoming coolant subcooling and steam cooling in dry channels during quenching process. The bottom flood model is based on porous media theory under the assumption that the height of the two phase region is negligible and the particulate debris bed is divided into single phase liquid and single phase vapor region. The results calculated by these models were compared with the experimental data. The influences of porosity, initial debris temperature and other parameters on both the top and bottom quenching process were studied in this paper. During the top flood, the quenching velocity increased with the increase of the porosity and the decrease of the initial debris temperature. The porosity and initial debris temperature had a larger influence on quenching velocity compared with other parameters, such as initial coolant temperature and coolant flow rate. During the bottom flood, the quenching velocity also increased with the increase of the porosity and the decrease of the initial debris temperature. However, the coolant flow rate had a large influence on the quenching velocity unlike that during the top flood. Quenching from bottom may be superior to the quenching from top. The results can be expected to be useful to evaluate the quenching process of the particulate debris bed.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Imtiaz Uddin ◽  
A. S. M. Atiqul Islam ◽  
Chowdhury Md. Feroz

An experimental study is performed to investigate the effect of geometry on the performance of miniature heat pipe (MHP). The experiment is conducted with circular and square MHPs having the same hydraulic diameter of 5 mm and length of 150 mm with acetone as the working fluid. The major findings in the investigation are as follows. At a constant heat flux, coolant flow rate and inclination angle, wall temperatures of evaporator section of circular MHP are higher than that of the square MHP. With the decrease in both inclination angle and coolant flow rate, the rate of increase in wall temperature of the evaporator section for circular MHP is higher than that of square MHP. Thermal resistance of the circular MHP is almost independent of coolant flow rate but for square MHP, thermal resistance decreases with the increase in coolant flow rate. Again at a constant coolant flow rate, heat flux and inclination angle, the thermal resistance for square MHP shows much smaller value than that of circular MHP. Overall heat transfer coefficient for square MHP is maximed at vertical orientation.


Author(s):  
Geping Wu

Safety concerns of nuclear reactors have attracted the attention of researchers on flow instabilities in natural circulation boiling loops. In this theoretical study, a drift flux model which solves the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy applicable to boiling two-phase natural circulation systems is adopted. The influence of two-phase flow parameters such as drift velocity and void distribution parameter on the loop flow rate is weak. The model is used to analysis the effects of heat flux and inlet subcooling on steady circulation flow rate. High circulation flow rate is accompanied by high heat flux and low inlet subcooling. According to the region and number of meeting points which connects the resistance pressure drop curve and the driving pressure drop curve, flow excursion and density-wave instability sometimes may occur. Further, investigations are carried out to study the effect of heat flux and system pressure on the instabilities region in natural circulation.


Author(s):  
Shinichi Miura ◽  
Yukihiro Inada ◽  
Yasuhisa Shinmoto ◽  
Haruhiko Ohta

Advance of an electronic technology has caused the increase of heat generation density for semiconductors densely integrated. Thermal management becomes more important, and a cooling system for high heat flux is required. It is extremely effective to such a demand using flow boiling heat transfer because of its high heat removal ability. To develop the cooling system for a large area at high heat flux, the cold plate structure of narrow channels with auxiliary unheated channel for additional liquid supply was devised and confirmed its validity by experiments. A large surface of 150mm in heated length and 30mm in width with grooves of an apex angle of 90 deg, 0.5mm depth and 1mm in pitch was employed. A structure of narrow rectangular heated channel between parallel plates with an unheated auxiliary channel was employed and the heat transfer characteristics were examined by using water for different combinations of gap sizes and volumetric flow rates. Five different liquid distribution modes were tested and their data were compared. The values of CHF larger than 1.9×106W/m2 for gap size of 2mm under mass velocity based on total volumetric flow rate and on the cross section area of main heated channel 720kg/m2s or 1.7×106W/m2 for gap size of 5mm under 290kg/m2s were obtained under total volumetric flow rate 4.5×10−5m3/s regardless of the liquid distribution modes. Under several conditions, the extensions of dry-patches were observed at the upstream location of the main heated channel resulting burnout not at the downstream but at the upstream. High values of CHF larger than 2×106W/m2 were obtained only for gap size of 2mm. The result indicates that higher mass velocity in the main heated channel is more effective for the increase in CHF. It was clarified that there is optimum flow rate distribution to obtain the highest values of CHF. For gap size of 2mm, high heat transfer coefficient as much as 7.4×104W/m2K were obtained at heat flux 1.5×106W/m2 under mass velocity 720kg/m2s based on total volumetric flow rate and on the cross section area of main heated channel. Also to obtain high heat transfer coefficient, it is more useful to supply the cooling liquid from the auxiliary unheated channel for additional liquid supply in the transverse direction perpendicular to the flow in the main heated channel.


Author(s):  
Rongliang Zhou ◽  
Juan Catano ◽  
Tiejun Zhang ◽  
John T. Wen ◽  
Greg J. Michna ◽  
...  

Steady-state modeling and analysis of a two-loop cooling system for high heat flux removal applications are studied. The system structure proposed consists of a primary pumped loop and a vapor compression cycle (VCC) as the secondary loop to which the pumped loop rejects heat. The pumped loop consists of evaporator, condenser, pump, and bladder liquid accumulator. The pumped loop evaporator has direct contact with the heat generating device and CHF must be higher than the imposed heat fluxes to prevent device burnout. The bladder liquid accumulator adjusts the pumped loop pressure level and, hence, the subcooling of the refrigerant to avoid pump cavitation and to achieve high critical heat flux (CHF) in the pumped loop evaporator. The vapor compression cycle of the two-loop cooling system consists of evaporator, liquid accumulator, compressor, condenser and electronic expansion valve. It is coupled with the pumped loop through a fluid-to-fluid heat exchanger that serves as both the vapor compression cycle evaporator and the pumped loop condenser. The liquid accumulator of the vapor compression cycle regulates the cycle active refrigerant charge and provides saturated vapor to the compressor at steady state. The heat exchangers are modeled with the mass, momentum, and energy balance equations. Due to the projected incorporation of microchannels in the pumped loop to enhance the heat transfer in heat sinks, the momentum equation, rarely seen in previous refrigeration system modeling efforts, is included to capture the expected significant microchannel pressure drop witnessed in previous experimental investigations. Electronic expansion valve, compressor, pump, and liquid accumulators are modeled as static components due to their much faster dynamics compared with heat exchangers. The steady-state model can be used for static system design that includes determining the total refrigerant charge in the vapor compression cycle and the pumped loop to accommodate the varying heat load, sizing of various components, and parametric studies to optimize the operating conditions for a given heat load. The effect of pumped loop pressure level, heat exchangers geometries, pumped loop refrigerant selection, and placement of the pump (upstream or downstream of the evaporator) are studied. The two-loop cooling system structure shows both improved coefficient of performance (COP) and CHF overthe single loop vapor compression cycle investigated earlier by authors for high heat flux removal.


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